


A Jolt From The Past

by TheWritingFox



Series: The Sparky Chronicles [13]
Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, malfunctioning robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27477886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWritingFox/pseuds/TheWritingFox
Summary: A malfunction on onstage leaves The Spine wondering if Sparky will ever forgive him. Can he even forgive himself?
Relationships: The Spine/Original Female Character
Series: The Sparky Chronicles [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1972690
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	A Jolt From The Past

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct continuation of "The World's A Stage".
> 
> This is a hurty one! I'm gonna put another warning here for mild character violence and mentions of PTSD.
> 
> Once again due to plot, Steve Negrete is briefly featured in this story.

After a very brief and rather vague explanation from Rabbit, the sound check was continued as planned. Steve Negrete manned the sound booth near the back of the theatre. The sound check was going fine, despite Sparky's short out when she remembered an interesting tidbit about her past regarding Thadeus Becile. The idea that Sparky had met the man unsettled everyone. 

The Walter bots decided to wait on telling Sparky the full story behind Becile until they had gotten back to the Manor. They had a show to practice for after all, and didn't want to scare the poor bot with horror stories of the war. The Walter robots tried their best to put aside the traumatic memories for now, but even the thought of Becile and the war was enough to chill them to the core.

Everything was going smoothly until BEEBOP announced a possible system threat to the Walter bots and shut them down. Steve mumbled some curses under his breath before he told Sparky and Walter Workers that he was going to reboot the robots. Steve swears again, something was going wonky on his computer screen, it flickered once before turning blue. 

"Oh, No. No! Guys! Blue screen of death!", he calls out just as the Walter bots start twitching and shifting on their feet, arms moving jerkily. They began to cry out in alarm as they relived one of the darkest times of their lives.

"They're on our six! G-ge-get down!", Rabbit cries as she lounges forward a step, arms swinging haphazardly as Sparky backs away a little in fear, hands covering her mouth, blue optics wide.

Zer0 mumbled something gruffly and jerked his shoulder to one side as he stood there, as if ramming something out of the way.

"They've got us surrounded!" The Spine barks out as he swivels from the waist, checking behind him.

"Steve, what's happening?!" Sparky calls out, watching her fellow robots apparently reliving something this terrible broke her heart. 

"I'm trying to fix it!" Steve yells back, panic in his voice. "Just stay back!"

The Spine cries out in pain. At his outcry, the little bot felt her fuses surge with a rush of emotions all swirling together. Disregarding what Steve had said and before the Workers could stop her, Sparky rushes to Spine's aid. She places her hands on his chassis to steady him as he turns his head side to side, body twitching slightly, his eyes unfocused. 

"Spine! Are you hurt? Look at me hun!" Sparky pleads, coolant tears forming in her eyes. Her loved ones were hurting and she felt helpless to stop it.

With a hiss of hydraulics, The Spine's attention snaps to her, optics glowing bright with an unfocused haze.

"Copper Elephant in sight! Engaging!", he calls out and lifts Sparky, his large hands easily wrapping around the smaller robot's waist, holding her up. She gasps in shock as he grips tighter. His eyes were cold and distant as she feels him dent the copper on her waist.

"Spine! Stop! Please you're hurting me!" Sparky couldn't help the shower of sparks that burst from her ears. Her coolant tears plopped down on Spine's face as he held her up. His expression was stoic, not even registering her cries or tears.

"Oh my god! Someone get in there! Turn him off manually!" Steve exclaims when he sees Sparky in trouble.

The Walter Workers had momentarily froze in place from the shock of the robots malfunctioning, knowing they could very possibly be badly hurt should they be hit by any of the automatons. Regardless of that fact Camille rushes forward to help, trying to get Rabbit and Zer0 to reboot. Chelsea rushes across the stage, avoiding Rabbit's swinging arms and Zer0's shifting and drops to a crouch behind Spine to access the automaton's control panel, her hands moving quickly, desperately trying to reboot or shut him down.

Sparky cries out again in pain, voice distorting. "Spine! Please!"

Despite his crushing grip on her waist, she gently places her hands on both sides of his face, trying to lift his gaze to meet her eyes. 

"It's me", her own tears had plopped down and were running down The Spine's silver features, leaving gray streaks. His eyes looked straight ahead, right through Sparky, gaze hard as stone.

"There, got it!" Chelsea shouts as she finally triggers The Spine's shut down and reboot procedure. 

The silver automaton drops Sparky unceremoniously to the stage with a thud as he reverts to a neutral standing position while Steve manages to shut down the other bots once he regains control over the computer system. The whole ordeal lasted just about five minutes. It felt like an eternity to everyone else.

Sparky curled into a painful ball where she landed on the stage, sparking and twitching every so often as the Walter bots reboot. Her system was sending her warnings accompanied by white hot sparks that brought gray coolant tears to her eyes.

The Spine blinks and straightens up. "Wha--what happened everyone?", his attention is immediately drawn to Sparky as she lets out a small distorted whimper from her spot on the floor. "Oh my god! Sparky..." the silver bot kneels down next to her, attempting to comfort her and see the extent of her damage.

The smaller bot's t-shirt had ridden up when she curled into a ball, exposing the dents on her waist. The indents were a perfect match to his hands. A small stress fracture had cracked open on her side, exposing her systems electrical current to the open air as it popped and crackled. She winced in pain every time a small arc of white hot electricity would fizzle out and make contact with her exterior metal plating, scorching her t-shirt a bit in the process.

Spine's optics widen in shock. "Oh, darlin'...No, no. I'm so sorry" he aplogizes, deep voice thick with remorse. 

He...hurt her. How could he expect her to forgive him? How will he forgive himself? Black oil pricked at the corner of his optics as he took in the damage caused by his hand.

Sparky looked up at him. Even through her tears she could see the internal turmoil reflected in Spine's eyes and how utterly devastated he looked as he knelt beside her. 

"It's--it's okay Spine" she tells him gently, trying not to flinch as another short crackled through her system. Ignoring the pain, she reaches out for his hand to try and comfort him.

The copper bot's vision then goes black around the edges. Her system was shutting itself down out of self preservation due to the damage it suffered. The last thing she sees is The Spine's worried face and a white blur as the Walter Workers rush across the stage to help.

**⊙⊙⊙⊙**

Sparky blinks as her eyes focus in the bright white light. This wasn't the theatre. She looks around, it was a lab back at the Manor. She registers wires connected to her, she was standing upright and dressed in something very much like a hospital gown.

"Good to see you operational, Sparky. You gave us a bit of a scare." Peter Walter the Sixth walks up to her from the other side of the lab. Rabbit, Zer0, and the Walter Workers were also with him.

The Workers put Sparky through some basic motor skill functions to make sure everything was working right as Six explains what happened.

"I've been here three days?" Sparky asks in shock. "But what about the show?", she looks around at the group. "Is everyone else alright?" 

"I refunded the tickets for the show, but that's not important", the Walter descendant tells her. "Everyone is fine, shaken but okay. Do you feel alright? No shocks, painful or otherwise?"

Sparky takes a moment to run a check on her systems. Seemed like everything was running smoothly. Touching a hand to her waist she finds no dents or blemishes. "I'm working correctly, no pain" she informs the mask wearing Walter.

"Good" Six sighs in relief and runs a hand through his hair. "The hardest part was fixing the stress fracture that was on your side after buffing the dents out. It took the longest of all your repairs. Glad to hear you're not in pain."

"I'm so happy you're ok!" Rabbit sniffles and wraps Sparky in a hug. It seemed she had held herself back from rushing to hug the smaller automaton until she knew it was alright to do so.

"Me too!" Zer0 exclaims also joining the hug. 

"I'm just happy everyone's alright", the little bot replies then looks around the lab, "but where's The Spine?"

Rabbit steps back and puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

"Spine felt terrible about w-wh-what happened, we all do, but he took it the worst. He was here the whole time Peter and the Workers repaired ya", she frowns a bit and continues. "After he knew you w-w-were gonna be ok, The Spine went and locked himself in The HOW. Hasn't been outta there since. He's shut himself off from our network too", she adds, indicating to herself and Zer0. "I'm w-wo-worried about him". Rabbit vents steam.

"Spine blames himself." Chelsea stated sadly. "Before he locked himself in, I made him promise that he'll send texts every other hour or so to either me or Peter".

"But it wasn't his fault, I have to go see him", Sparky says lowly, almost to herself. "Am I okay to leave?", she asks Six and the Walter Workers.

Peter nods from behind his mask. "I don't see why not. You're not experiencing any problems. Just be take it easy for the time being and let either me or one of the Workers know if you start experiencing trouble." 

Sparky nods. "I will, don't worry."

After the little bot is disconnected from the wires, she promptly makes a stop to her room to change clothes before heading to The HOW. Rabbit and Zer0 were waiting for her in the hall outside her room. 

"Sparky, I get you w-wa-wanna check on Spine, but I know my little brother. When he gets l-l-like this he won't talk to anyone." Rabbit tells her, venting steam out of stress and worry.

"And I've never seen Spine do this before", Zer0 adds in a hushed tone, "he looked so sad."

"Spine doesn't need to talk to me, he just has to listen." Sparky tells them after a moment then makes her way down the corridors towards The HOW.

As much as Rabbit and Zer0 wanted to come along, they both realized Sparky would have a better chance of reaching Spine if they weren't with her. They hoped whatever she had planned would work.

Soon, Sparky stood in front of the solid metal doors of The HOW and remembers the first time she visited. She would've smiled at the memory if she wasn't so worried about the tall silver robot. This was Spine's quiet sanctuary away from the chaos of the Manor, but the thought of him holed up in there depressed and angry at himself broke Sparky's heart. She needed to comfort him in some way. 

The copper bot knocks on the door. "Spine? It's me, please let me in", she calls gently.

Silence. Before Sparky could knock again, a small panel on the wall opened up next to the door. A screen about the size of an iPad was exposed and soon the pixelated face of QWERTY appeared on it. Even though the AI's face was a simple smiley expression, he still appeared to look distressed

"[The Spine wants no vistors]", the AI's electronic voice beeps out, Sparky could swear there was a touch of sadness in his voice. 

"Please QWERTY. I need to see him."

"[I am sorry Sparky friendo] [Spine gave official orders] [can't override]"

"I understand QWERTY", she sighs. "Can he hear me in there?"

"[Affirmative] [Good luck Sparky] [QWERTY out]". With those last words, the screen goes black and the panel slides back over it, leaving Sparky alone once again.

Sparky puts her hand on the door of The HOW. "Spine. You don't have to talk to me, just listen. I'm not angry with you and I don't blame you for what happened. It wasn't in your control. If anything, it's my fault. I didn't know mentioning what I remembered would bring back all those bad memories for everyone. I'm so sorry."

No response from the other side of the door, not like she expected one. 

"The HOW is your safe haven Spine, but I don't want you to be alone and hurting, I know what that's like."

Flashbacks of her time in the crate ran through Sparky's mind.

"You don't have to let me in, but I'm staying", she adds gently as she sits down on the floor in front of the door. "I'm here for you, hun". 

As she settles in, Sparky happens to look down the hall a little ways, and quirks a brow at what she sees. Her blue ukulele was resting against the wall. The Manor was a strange place, things did seem to shift around a bit, but she never expected one of her own belongings to be moved. She stands back up to retrieve it, then returns to her spot on the floor, setting the instrument on her lap.

Then again, she reasoned as she tuned the strings out of habit, the Manor had once bodily moved her when an accident involving a water leak had left her shorted out and immobilized, far away from anyone's help. Perhaps even the Manor knew something was wrong right now and was trying to help in its own way.

Inside The HOW, The Spine had disconnected himself from his chassis and was now lounging in a wire hammock high up near the ceiling. He heard everything Sparky had said. He just couldn't bring himself to let her see the state he was in. Black oil had left smudged trails down his silver face. It felt like guilt was eating him alive. He remembered snippets of what happened during the malfunction. Images of the damage he caused kept flashing in his mind, the sound of Sparky's pained and distorted voice crying out his name in pain and fear rang in his ears.

He had taken a vow of peace so many years ago...and now he had hurt someone close to him. Even if he couldn't have controlled himself, he should've tried harder to fight the malfunction. He curled into himself tighter. 

The images and sounds kept repeating on a loop in his mind. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to tune them out in his head. The sound of music softly playing from outside the door of The HOW made him open his eyes a few moments later. 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow', the tune's name clicks with The Spine as he listens. The music was soothing, and distracted him from his noisy mind.

It was one of Sparky's favorite songs to play on the ukulele. She hoped her continued presence outside the The HOW would comfort The Spine in some way and let him know he wasn't and didn't have to be alone, regardless if he wanted to talk or not. As she plays, Sparky begins to sing softly, the natural acoustics of the hallway complementing the little bots voice.

Sparky begins another song when she finishes the first. Spine wasn't going to be alone, she was here to make sure of it. No matter how long it took.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by the war malfunction bit the band did onstage once. It was such an angsty story idea, I couldn't pass it up.


End file.
